Lower Silesia: Wrocław, the Giant Mountains and the Table Mountains

Wrocław greets you with a Market Square so wide that the Gothic Town Hall seems to float in the middle of it, its stepped gables and astronomical clock gilded by the afternoon sun. Hunt for the bronze dwarfs — there are more than six hundred, hiding by doorways, cash machines and lamp-posts — then cross the bridges to Ostrów Tumski, the cathedral island, where at dusk a lamplighter in a cape still lights the gas lamps one by one. Climb the cathedral tower for the view over the Oder, and if time allows, walk to the Centennial Hall and its pergola by the fountain. Charge at the Tesla Supercharger at Bielany Wrocławskie on the southern edge of the city.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: Tesla Supercharger (Tesla Supercharger Bielany Wrocławskie) — typical arrival 30%, about 20 min to 80%. Why stop here: Wrocław Market Square and Town Hall, Ostrów Tumski and the cathedral, Centennial Hall. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

Fifty kilometres south-west, Świdnica hides one of the strangest churches in Europe. After the Thirty Years’ War the Protestants were allowed to build only outside the walls, without a tower, of wood, clay and straw, and within a single year — so they built the Church of Peace, a vast half-timbered hall for seven thousand people, its galleries painted with Bible scenes and coats of arms. A short drive on, Książ Castle rises above a wooded gorge on a cliff of grey rock, the third largest castle in Poland, with terraced gardens, a palm house below and wartime tunnels cut into the hill. Sleep in the castle hotel or in Wałbrzych and charge at the GreenWay station there.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: GreenWay (GreenWay Wałbrzych) — typical arrival 35%, about 25 min to 80%. Why stop here: Książ Castle. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

Morning takes you to Krzeszów, where two Baroque churches rise improbably from a green valley — the abbey is called the pearl of Silesian Baroque, and its mausoleum of the Piast dukes glows with gold and marble. Then the road climbs towards the Giant Mountains. In Karpacz, on a wooded slope, stands the Wang church, a twelfth-century stave church bought in Norway by a Prussian king and carried here plank by plank. From the church a trail and the chairlift lead to Kopa, and on a clear afternoon you can walk on to the bare summit of Śnieżka, 1,603 metres, with its saucer-shaped observatory. Charge overnight at your hotel; the nearest fast charger is in Jelenia Góra.

Why stop hereWhy stop here: Wang stave church, Śnieżka summit. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

Today belongs to water and ruins. In Szklarska Poręba, follow short forest paths to the Szklarka waterfall and to Kamieńczyk, where the stream drops into a narrow gorge and you walk between the walls in a helmet. In the afternoon drive down to the Jelenia Góra Valley, once a summer garden of Prussian aristocrats, with more than thirty palaces scattered among fields and ponds: stop at Łomnica for apple cake on the terrace and at Wojanów, mirrored in its moat. Before sunset climb the forest track to the ruin of Chojnik, perched on a granite rock, where a legend says a proud princess sent her suitors round the walls on horseback. Charge at the GreenWay station in Jelenia Góra.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: GreenWay (GreenWay Jelenia Góra) — typical arrival 30%, about 30 min to 85%. Why stop here: Chojnik Castle ruin. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

The longest drive of the trip runs south-east along the foot of the Sudetes, past Kamienna Góra and the quiet villages of the Wałbrzych hills, to the Kłodzko Valley. Kłodzko sits under a massive Prussian fortress whose bastions and galleries you can explore with a guide, and beneath the old town runs a tunnel route through medieval cellars. Cross the Gothic stone bridge over the Młynówka, lined with saints like a small Charles Bridge, and end the day in the spa park of Polanica-Zdrój, where the mineral water is served warm in a pump room. Charge at the GreenWay station in Kłodzko before the mountain days.

Why stop hereWhy stop here: Polanica-Zdrój spa park. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

The Table Mountains look from afar like a stone tablecloth laid over the hills, and up close they become a labyrinth. Climb the 665 sandstone steps to Szczeliniec Wielki, the highest point, and walk its plateau among rocks named the Camel, the Hen and the Monkey, past chasms where snow lies into June. Then take the winding Road of a Hundred Bends to Błędne Skały, the Errant Rocks, where the path squeezes through cracks barely wider than your shoulders. On the way back stop in Czermna at the Chapel of Skulls, its walls lined with three thousand skulls of war and plague victims, a sobering silence after the rocks. Return to Kłodzko or Polanica to charge.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: GreenWay (GreenWay Kłodzko) — typical arrival 30%, about 30 min to 85%. Why stop here: Kłodzko Fortress, Gothic bridge in Kłodzko. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

East of Kłodzko the Śnieżnik massif rises in dark spruce. In Kletno a guided path leads into the Bear Cave, a glittering gallery of dripstones where the bones of cave bears were found, and nearby old uranium mine tunnels open to visitors. Drive on through Międzygórze, a village of carved wooden villas above a roaring waterfall, then over the hills to Lądek-Zdrój, one of the oldest spas in Europe, where Goethe and Tsar Alexander once bathed. Its domed Wojciech bathhouse still fills with warm radon water under a painted cupola. Sleep in a spa hotel with a garage socket, or charge at the GreenWay station in Stronie Śląskie.

Why stop hereWhy stop here: Wojciech spa house. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

On the last morning, Złoty Stok takes you underground into a gold mine worked for seven centuries, where a tunnel ends at the only underground waterfall in Poland and a small train carries you back to daylight. Twenty minutes north, Ząbkowice Śląskie has its own leaning tower, tilting more than two metres off true, and the castle ruin that inspired a Gothic horror tale about Frankenstein long before Mary Shelley. The road then runs gently down across the Silesian plain to Wrocław. Finish where you began, with an evening walk along the Oder boulevards and dinner in a cellar under the Town Hall. Charge at the Tesla Supercharger at Bielany Wrocławskie.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: Tesla Supercharger (Tesla Supercharger Bielany Wrocławskie) — typical arrival 30%, about 20 min to 80%. Why stop here: Wrocław Market Square and Town Hall, Ostrów Tumski and the cathedral, Centennial Hall. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.